Tomorrow
by PoizenLovePuppet
Summary: SasoDei. Narutoverse. Oneshot. Sasori lived for his art, believed in eternity. But Deidara was different. In retrospect, you would have thought that through all those years, he would have learnt the most important thing... about tomorrow.


When I was younger, I lived with my parents, and grandmother, in Suna. It was always hot and windy, and the weather left little opportunity for children to play outside, though many tried. This never bothered me, though, as I had better things to do.

On an average day, my father would bring home a smallish piece of wood, and teach me how to carve the most beautiful shapes and figures. It wasn't simple, as you have to start off by paying attention to the grain of the wood you are using, and then work with it. But it still came to me easily. I wouldn't say it was_ talent _or _natural,_ but the wood appealed to me straight away, as though it and I were friends in some long past time. As my father taught me this, we would sit in the living room, together with my mother, who was usually reading book, or scroll, of some kind. I was never sure what it was back then, but I think she was doing research for the village. Beforehand, my parents would have prepared dinner, and we would have eaten together.

My father would often lean over and quietly give me advice. The wood and I may have had a strange affinity for each other, but my skills at crafting it were far from perfect. Later in the night I would be sent to bed, and my mother would read to me until I fell asleep.

Of course, when the academy that I attended announced that there was going to be an art competition for all the pupils, I was one of the first to sign up. And I already knew what I was going to make; a puppet. I'm not sure exactly why the academy held this competition, but apparently it was done each year, as I found it difficult to perceive how most of the children, who's idea of 'art' barely stretched between scribbled drawing of square houses and stick men, where meant to participate. It was probably some scheme to find 'gifted' children among those attending.

I talked about this competition for hours, and probably drove my parents mad with an endless stream of ideas of how exactly was going to design my piece, although they never showed any signs of finding it distressing in the least. During that time, my mother would often not read me stories before bedtime, but discuss with me the details of my piece, my puppet. She would sit at the edge of my bed and smile down at me in a way that I can only describe as fondly, and ask me little questions to determine details, most of which I would not have thought of myself.

So after hours and hours of talking, I began sketching out my design, going over each body part of my puppet separately, and planning how they would fit together, what kind of joints to use, and exactly how each piece would be decorated. And finally, when each detail was planned out carefully, leaving a margin on the plans, so that I could adapt them to the character of the wood. I refused to let anyone help me choose the pieces of wood I chose. I was determined that this puppet would be entirely my own work, from start to finish.

At the academy, I would fidget impatiently during lessons, but never brought the pieces of my puppet to school to work on. There was to much danger that one of the other children might destroy it, purposely or not, and once I had chosen a particular piece of wood for a specific part of my puppet, no other piece would do. Other people may not have been able to see the difference between the two pieces of wood, but it just wouldn't feel right to me.

In the end, I spent hours sitting at home, perilously carving each centimetre of wood agonisingly slowly, so that they came out exactly perfectly. My father would hover over me, quietly whispering advice in my ears, and my mother would smile brightly and compliment the pieces I had finished preparing.

A week before the deadline, I had finished all the pieces and fitted them together. I decided not to paint the entire puppet, but add tints to the wood, and then glaze it. That way, the colours would be softer, and the wood would be more robust and water resistant. When I had done this, my mother asked me if I wanted her to make some clothes for it. I didn't let her, but got her to show me how to make them myself. That way, the puppet was still my work, and my work alone.

After all, it was _my_ puppet.

The puppet was a ninja warrior. This had seemed adequate, as I lived in a village that was populated mainly by ninjas. To be more specific, it was a miniature replica of one of the past Kazekages. Even though it was quite small, not over 30 cm, the puppet was fully jointed, so that each finger could be moved separately.

When I had finished it completely, I placed it in a box and hid it until I handed it in. I had some kind of intuition that it should only be seen (publicly) when it was unveiled for the competition. I knew I was going to win. I knew this because the other children seemed to have few qualms about showing their work to everyone before the competition, and I had seen nearly all the entries, if not all. Not that the fact that none of the other pieces where anywhere near as good as mine ever gave me the thought of compromising on the quality of mine simply because it already outstripped the quality of theirs.

I handed it in on Thursday during academy, the day before the actual competition, which was being held on Friday. When I arrived home from the academy, my parents were leaving. I wasn't surprised by this. My parents left on missions every so often, and would arrive home a few days later. They had promised me to be back in time for the competition tomorrow. They had never let me down, so I had complete confidence in them to be there.

I hugged my parents and waved them off, asking again if they were sure they would make it on time, and they, again, reassured me that this was a simple mission, and that they would definitely make it.

They never came, not even at the end.

I had won first prize, but they hadn't come.

I sulked the entire walk home, to find that only my grandmother was there. She told me there had been some complications, and that they would be home tomorrow.

I smiled when I heard this.

That was fine.

_I'll tell them tomorrow_ I thought as I set the puppet down on my desk and put myself to bed.

I had no idea then that that would be the first of many cold and lonely nights, in which I would endlessly, hopelessly hold onto the hope that they would come home soon, until later, when I would figure out that my grandmother had been lying to me, and that they would never come back. That I would spend every waking hour fashioning puppets, of which my parents would have been proud, and to replace my parent.

But I didn't know all of that, so that night, and many of those following it, I would close my eyes and tell myself the same thing.

_I'll tell them when they get back_

_I'll tell them tomorrow_

Years passed after that, but most of the time, it didn't hurt. It was only that time at the start, when I didn't realise that everything my grandmother told me was lies, that it hurt so painfully I could hardly bare to move in fear of breaking. Because in that time, it seemed to me that my parents had left me there on purpose; as though they hadn't wanted me anymore. That they weren't coming back because they didn't like me. That short amount of time tore me apart, and put me back together in an entirely different way. I became a different person, unable to wait, because as soon as something was late, I was overtaken by the same sense of abandonment that surrounded my memories of my parents. I became irritable and unstable, never sure of any ones feelings or motives.

Eventually, the feelings became numb, like a wound that had bled too much, and stopped even caring whether my parents would return or not. This was when it occurred to me that they were dead. But that didn't matter to me at that point, I still felt lost and empty, abandoned and lied to, and nothing, no actions, no words, could heal those wounds. Not even if my parents had somehow come home again. I made replacements for my parents; puppets. Puppets that I could control, and therefore trust. Puppets that could not leave me or lie to me, because they were bound to me. Incapable of anything without me. They could not make their own choices. And they could not be killed.

Puppets were art.

And they would last for all eternity. For the rest of forever they would stay with me, and never leave or betray me. So surely, that was true beauty? Something that would stay with me forever and that I could rely on to be there when I needed it.

That is art.

At some point I became sick of my hometown, sick of being around people who had lied to, and deceived, me, people who would never know how much their words had hurt me, and people who were unreliable.

All people were unreliable.

And so I left the town; became a criminal; killed. I used my art for protection, disguise, and comfort. Art became the only thing in the world important to me. Art was eternal, and reliable. I had no use for thing that were unreliable, or that would leave me. Art was the only thing that mattered: the lives lost, the pain cause, none of it meant anything, it was all passing, and therefore not art.

If I was a person, I was therefore unreliable, so at some point I made a decision. I would become part of my art. It would enable me to become eternal, to reject the petty, short life that nature offered. I would become something above other humans, I would stop being human. I would last forever.

I was recruited into a criminal organisation. It didn't matter; I didn't care. As long as I could still practice my art, it was irrelevant to me. More years passed in which I fought and killed countless people, developed new techniques, became feared, became a terrorist.

My life was still numb, and the art was consolation to what I had lost. I refused to believe that I was missing anything, refused to believe that my life was _empty_, because after all, I had my art, and needed nothing else.

The painful reminder that, essentially, I was still human, and therefore craved attention and caring, came some years after I joined this organisation, in the form of the newest member. He was still young, and loud, and charismatic. He was a terrorist bomber, and fittingly, he _crashed_ into everything: fights, quarrels, missions, my life.

The first time we met was at the base of our organisation, when our leader introduced us, and promptly shoved us out the door on a mission; no time to be wasted.

"I'm Deidara," he told me at the first opportunity, crossing his arms across his chest and grinning. I shrugged. This seemed to annoy him, so he added more.

"I'm your new partner, un, so who're you, un?" still, I ignored him. I was inside a more favoured puppet disguise of mine, Hiroku, so he could not see me, nor my expression.

"Okay, un, so you're not exactly sociable. I swear everyone I've met in this organisation is a freaking stiff, un. I'd be surprised if any of you actually had emotions, un," he continued after this, and I'm not sure whether he was talking to me or himself, but eventually he finished talking about the subject, and moved on to another.

"I'm an artist, un. You should be honoured to meet me, un, I'm probably the best, most original artist who has ever lived, un. I can't believe you're actually such a stiff, are you a walking corpse or something, un?" I became curious. An artist, like me, then? So I asked him about it, and I swear, as soon as I uttered the words his eyes lit up. There was a kind of indescribable intensity about the way they shone, and about the way he spoke. I knew then, that whatever his art was, he was, just like me, absolutely and radically dedicated to his art.

His 'art' however provided to be a problem.

"Art is fleeting, un" he would tell me, on hundred of occasions, grinning at first, but that would fade later, when I corrected him, and he would become angry. After that first conversation, we would fight every time art was brought up. The fights didn't develop out of any genuine hatred for each other, but rather because we both truly believed in our own art, and found it impossible to comprehend any variations from this.

As I said, we were both dedicated to our own art.

Then, from these fights, and our inability to accept each others art, the hatred grew. We hated each other almost as passionately as we loved our art. But somewhere between the art, the fights and the hatred, we became bound to one another for support (in his case) and human touch (in mine). It was inevitable that we would, however opposed to each other we were, find similarities in the way we treated our art, if not what our art was, and from there, we started to respect, and rely on, each other.

He started to call me 'danna', master, as a sign that he respected my status as a fellow artist. That was how he was. He was different from the rest of the organisation, prepared to show his emotions, his strengths, and his alliances. His strongest alliance was with me. Even through the hatred, I knew he would choose me as a partner above any of the other members of the organisation.

He was open.

I was, however, no different from the rest of the organisation. I was, as he put it, a 'stiff'. I refused to admit that I respected him in any way, or that I relied on him to keep me sane. I would not, and could not. The contradictions in myself made things worse. I was determined not to respect him, yet, as I knew that in some manner I did, I tried harder not to. Tried harder to hurt him, insult him, make him surrender his view on art for mine.

It never worked. Whatever I did or said, Deidara would never back down, never be beaten by me, even if I broke every bone in his body. He stayed true to his art, and somewhere along the line, his absolute dedication won me over.

Not that I would ever let him know that.

There was no specific time or reason, just an eventual edginess, and doubts in my own motivations before I realised that I was, and had for some time, been in love with him. It wasn't the kind of 'love' you hear about. There was nothing romantic about it, nothing that made me feel weak in his presence, nor any sense of overwhelming lust. It was just a certainty that, at some point, fixed itself into my mind, and refused to leave.

It was just as though it had always been this way, and always would. I was trapped by him, without him ever realising it.

This did not mean that the fights ever ceased or calmed, if anything, it made them more extreme, more determining.

We went on mission after mission, and this one was no different. More important, yes, and difficult, certainly. But Deidara and I managed fine, until more ninja turned up.

Another of the organisations' targets was there, so we decided to split up, fight separate battles. My opponents were a young Kunoichi, and my grandmother; who I had left so many years ago; who I resented.

"Deidara," I called, before he turned to leave. He looked back at me and grinned. I wanted to tell him then, suddenly, all the overwhelming feelings I had denied myself over the years, that rose up in me then. Instead, I told him to go. We had fights to win.

There was no time for petty emotions there.

_I'll tell him when he gets back_ I reassured myself.

_I'll tell him tomorrow_.

You would have thought that, after all these years, through all the pain, through all his talk of art being fleeting, and all the time I spent working on art that would last forever, I would have learnt one thing:

_Tomorrow never comes._


End file.
